Gender and intersectional bias in featured biographies on the front page of the Italian edition of Wikipedia, 2014–2024

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine gendered and intersectional patterns of visibility in all biographical entries featured on the Italian edition of Wikipedia Main Page (2014–2024). This paper addresses a major gap in Wikipedia research, as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior work has analysed how front-page curation in the Italian edition allocates symbolic visibility across gender, nationality, ethnicity, language or occupation. Design/methodology/approach A decade-long data set of 4,310 front-page biographies was collected from arquivo.pt and daily captures, reconciled with Wikidata properties (gender, nationality, native language, ethnicity, religion, occupation and birth/death dates) and analysed using SQL queries, Universal Decimal Classification-based occupational aggregation and visual analytics. Findings The results of this study show extreme and persistent gender imbalance (86% men; 0.04% non-binary/trans), strong recency bias and a pronounced Euro–North American concentration. Women are underrepresented across all periods, countries and professions; gaps peak in the Middle Ages (7.84:1) and remain high in contemporary figures (5.74:1). Public-facing occupations dominate, particularly writers, footballers and politicians. Metadata incompleteness in ethnicity, language and religion restricts deeper intersectional examination. Research limitations/implications Incomplete sociocultural metadata constrain intersectional granularity; future work should improve Wikidata coverage and cross-edition comparisons. Practical implications Results inform editors, policymakers and Wikimedia initiatives seeking to rebalance gender and cultural representation on high-visibility interfaces. Social implications Front-page visibility shapes public perceptions of cultural importance; current patterns reinforce systemic inequalities and historical androcentrism. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic, longitudinal, intersectional analysis of the Italian edition of Wikipedia Main Page. This paper conceptualises the Main Page as a socio-technical gatekeeping device and demonstrates how visibility regimes reproduce entrenched cultural and gendered hierarchies.